Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-254) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: Transforming desire / Manuele Gragnolati [and others] -- Modern lovers: Evanescence and the act in Dante, Arnaut, and Sordello / Bill Burgwinkle -- 'L'ora che volge il disio': Comparative Hermeneutics of Desire in Dante and 'Attar / Daniela Boccassini -- Ever-Growing Desire: Spiritual Pregnancy in Hadewijch and in Middle High German Mystics / Annette Volfing -- 'Quali colombe dal disio chiamate': A Bestiary of Desire in Dante's Commedia / Giuseppe Ledda -- Dante Painting an Angel: Image-making, Double-oriented Sonnets and Dissemblance in Vita Nuova xxxiv / Fabio A. Camilletti -- The Call of the Beautiful: Augustine and the Object of Desire in Purgatorio x / Peter Dent -- Desire and Devotion, Vision and Touch in the Vita Nuova / Robert S. Sturges -- Intellectual Memory and Desire in Augustine and Dante's Paradiso / Paola Ureni -- Sexualities and Knowledges in Purgatorio xxvi and Inferno v / Marguerite Waller -- Between 'Unio' and Alienation: Expressions of Desire in the Strophic Poems of Hadewijch / Almut Suerbaum -- Desire, Subjectivity, and Lyric Poetry in Dante's Convivio and Commedia / Tristan Kay -- Desire as a Dead Letter: A Reading of Petrarch's RVF / Francesca Southerden -- Queer Metaphors and Queerer Reproduction in Alain de Lille's De planctu naturae and Jean de Meun's Roman de la rose / Jonathan Morton -- Desiring Tales: Two Vernacular Poetics of Desire / Monika Otter.
Summary:
"This volume takes Dante's rich and multifaceted discourse of desire, from the Vita Nova to the Commedia, as a point of departure in investigating medieval concepts of desire in all their multiplicity, fragmentation and interrelation. As well as offering several original contributions on this fundamental aspect of Dante's work, it seeks to situate the Florentine writer more effectively within the broader spectrum of medieval culture and to establish greater intellectual exchange between Dante scholars and those from other disciplines. The volume is open to diverse critical and methodological approaches, and explores the extent to which modern theoretical paradigms can be used to shed light upon the Middle Ages."--Publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.